Eni admits failings with hazardous area motors on Goliat floater

Offshore staff

OSLO, Norway -- The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has ordered Eni Norge to take action to minimize the ignition threat posed by potentially faulty motors on the Goliat floating platform in the Barents Sea.

Until Eni achieves compliance to the PSA’s satisfaction, all production from the FPSO will remain shut down.

Last month a PSA team performed an audit of electrical safety and the person in charge of the electrical facilities at Eni Norge on board the FPSO. The PSA then held a follow-up meeting with Eni last week.

The team identified a high fault rate with the Ex integrity of the equipment through random sampling of reports from inspections of electric motors featuring an emergency stop arrangement. This also included equipment in hazardous areas.

Following the audit, Eni reviewed all the inspection reports for the relevant equipment and submitted that the total fault rate for these items after inspection-related repairs was 38%, with 3.5% of these incidents representing serious faults in the company’s own assessment.

PSA regards these fault rates as high. During the meeting, Eni added that it had investigated around 50% of the Ex motors at that point, and the condition of those which have not been inspected is therefore unclear.

Eni must now complete a systematic survey of potential ignition sources related to electric Ex motors, and on the basis of the survey, implement the necessary technical, operational and organizational measures to reduce as far as possible the threat of ignition from all faults which represent an ignition source.

10/09/2017